LITMIR.BIZ

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The pale, glowing skin was flawless from shoulder to toe. She was slim and taut from two years of hard, physical work, that could equally have come with tennis and dieting. Only her hands, with rough skin around the short nails and reddened knuckles from disinfectant scrubbing, betrayed her as something other than the society girl.

      She had brought a plain black linen dress with her, with deep Vs at the front and back that showed the smooth skin. Amy slipped it on and then frowned at herself. On impulse, she walked back to Adeline’s dressing table and opened her jewel case. Every night her maid locked the case in the safe, but during the day the nested velvet layers lay ready for Adeline to choose from their glittering contents. Amy lifted out a dark blue tray where pendant earrings sparkled, and peered into the recesses. There they were, the pieces she was looking for. She took out the two identical bracelets and slipped one on each wrist. They were bands of diamonds, as heavy and as wide as handcuffs.

      It was too much for a family lunch party, but at the same time it looked exactly right. Just as Adeline herself, with her flair for unpredictable statements, would have looked. Amy picked up the hairbrush with AL in rhinestones on the silver back and smoothed her hair once more. And then, she judged, she was ready.

      In the drawing room Adeline was pouring a martini for Richard. Her own glass was already refilled. Richard was lounging against the white marble mantelpiece. They both glanced up at her as she came in trailing her waft of Chanel, and then they stared. Richard’s perpetually half-closed eyelids blinked just once as he glided forward.

      ‘Is this how one looks when one comes of age?’ he demanded. ‘I can’t wait for it to be my turn, if it is.’

      Amy had celebrated her twenty-first birthday four weeks earlier. Her party had consisted of bottles of wine and an iced cake from Bruton Street, shared between shifts with the other nurses. There had been no time for anything else.

      She returned Richard’s kiss on both cheeks, and then held up her wrists like a pugilist.

      ‘Do you mind, Mummy? May I wear them? It struck me when I was dressing that it’s exactly what you would have chosen to wear with this nothing frock.’

      Adeline wasn’t staring any longer. She was nursing her drink and smiling, but there was a small quiver of apprehension in it that hollowed her cheeks.

      ‘Of course you may, my love. They’ll be yours some day. I’m glad you’ve discarded the wholesome nurse look for a few hours. The … the old friend who’s joining us for lunch … it wouldn’t appeal to him at all. And I’m enough of a mama to want to be absurdly proud of you all to people who matter to me.’

      ‘Who is he?’

      Behind her mother Amy saw Richard raise one eloquent eyebrow and blow a kiss into the empty air.

      Adeline was touching her hair, an uncharacteristic gesture of anxiety. She didn’t answer Amy and an odd silence deepened between them, as if they were waiting anxiously for something.

      They didn’t have to wait long.

      A moment later the maid opened the door and announced ‘Mr Roper, my lady.’

      ‘Jack.’

      Adeline stood up and held out both her hands but the tall, broad man who had swept in ignored them and wrapped his arms around her. He rocked her so that she swayed on her fuchsia suede heels and then turned her face up so that he could look squarely into it before he kissed her.

      ‘Beautiful Adeline,’ he said. ‘And not a day older.’

      ‘Several thousand days.’ There was a glow in her cheeks that had nothing to do with the martinis. ‘How many years is it? Too many, anyway.’ She shuddered a little theatrically. Jack, I want you to meet my two younger children. Amy, and Richard.’

      The man turned to look at them. Amy saw close-cropped fair hair that was beginning to turn silver, a mouth marked by lines that might indicate either laughter or very strong will, and bright, clever blue eyes. She judged that Jack Roper was about fifty years old, and from the timbre of his voice rather than his accent she knew that he was American. His hand as it shook hers was warm and firm, and he held it for seconds longer than he need have done.

      ‘Amy?’ he said musingly. ‘When I last saw you, you were hardly more than a baby. It was your sister who promised to be the beauty then, I thought. I see I was wrong.’

      Amy felt a faint, unmistakably pleasurable shiver. Whoever he was, Jack Roper was somebody special. Unplaceable, and so a little threatening, but special.

      ‘Isabel is very lovely…’

      ‘Isabel is married with a baby of her own, now …’ Amy and Adeline spoke together and then broke off, falling silent. Jack Roper was still holding Amy’s hand. He lifted it and touched the knuckles with his mouth. She saw his eyes flicker at the rough skin, and then narrow with calculation. It was a reaction as automatic as blinking. Mr Roper would miss nothing. Amy found herself wondering how much he had deduced from their quick, bright mentions of Isabel.

      ‘And Richard?’ He relinquished her hand at last, and she knew that he had registered that she wore no rings.

      The men shook hands. Again there was the sharp, blue glance, and Richard countered it with his hooded stare. Adeline’s hand shook a little as she handed Jack Roper his glass, but her smile was under control again.

      ‘To old times?’ Adeline proposed, lifting her glass to him, and he echoed politely, ‘Old times.’ But Amy, as she watched him, knew that Jack Roper wasn’t a man who would care much for the past. The future might challenge him, but it was the present he lived for. She felt the little shiver again.

      Adeline and her guest were talking about the years of their friendship. They had met almost twenty-five years ago, in London during the glittering Season before Adeline had married Gerald Lovell.

      ‘Your mother was like the fairy on top of the Christmas tree, then,’ Jack Roper said.

      ‘And still is,’ Richard murmured. He was reluctantly impressed by the stranger, and so unusually quiet.

      Jack Roper bowed. His pale grey suit was perfectly cut, smooth as a second skin across his broad shoulders. ‘Of course. But in those days, every man who saw her fell in love with her. Including me, of course. I was crouching underneath the tree, hoping to catch a sequin falling off her skirt.’

      Adeline was laughing. ‘You were too busy making money and making yourself known,’ she corrected him. He made his ironic bow again, smiling.

      ‘We were two Pittsburghers, both of us with our way to make in the world. By the time I had paved mine a little, you were Lady Lovell.’

      ‘Yes,’ Adeline said softly. From the brief glance that passed between them Amy guessed that, at some inevitable time during the years between, her mother and Jack Roper had been lovers.

      ‘Good to be back in London,’ he said after a pause. ‘I always feel at home here.’

      ‘And where’s home when you aren’t feeling at home in London?’ It was unlike Richard to sound waspish. Amy wondered a little at the complex currents eddying around her.

      ‘All over. New York mostly, for the last few years. Trying to put my business back on its feet after 1929.’

      Somehow Jack Roper didn’t have the look of an unsuccessful man.

      ‘What is your business?’ Richard asked.

      ‘Construction. What’s yours?’ The blunt deflection made Richard laugh in spite of himself. He spread his arms out along the marble mantelpiece.

      ‘Eton, for far too long. I’m not going back for the next half, though. I’ve decided to launch myself as a man of letters. It sounds agreeable as well as impressive, don’t you think?’

      ‘I’ve no idea.’

      They were all laughing when the maid came in again and whispered to Adeline. Adeline stood up and said gracefully, ‘Shall

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